Privacy
Last reviewed 2026-10-17
Sightlog is a nature observation log for birders and naturalists. This page describes what the service actually stores and sends today. Questions, access, correction and deletion requests: terjetyl@gmail.com.
What we store
- Account: an identifier from our sign-in provider (FjordID), plus the email address and display name it provides. A record is created the first time you use the app while signed in.
- Observations you log: species, count, date and time, your notes, the exact latitude and longitude you choose (from the map or your device location), and a place name looked up for that point.
- Field notes: the text of each field note and its timeline entries (with the time each was written), the outing's start and send times and time zone, and any photos attached to it. The field notebook is only available to the signed-in account that wrote it. While you write a note, entries and photos are also held in your browser’s IndexedDB storage until they have been uploaded.
- Photos you upload: the image file, its original file name and size. JPEG, PNG and WebP files are stored as uploaded, which means any metadata inside the file, including camera GPS position and timestamps, is kept in the stored copy. HEIC files are converted to JPEG on upload, which drops most metadata. For photos attached to a field note, the server also reads the capture time and GPS position from the file’s EXIF data and saves them in the database, so a sighting can be placed and dated from the photo. In the web app, photos larger than 4 MB are shrunk in your browser before upload; only the capture time and GPS position are kept in the shrunk copy.
- API keys: if you create one, we store a SHA-256 hash of the key, the name you gave it, its first 12 characters, when it was created and last used, and whether it has been revoked. The key itself is shown once and is not stored. See API keys and the MCP server.
- Connected accounts: if you connect iNaturalist, we store your iNaturalist user id, username and the access token we received. Tokens are removed when you disconnect.
- Server logs: our servers log requests (time, path, query string, status, client IP address). The nearby-sightings feed puts your coordinates in the query string, so they appear in those logs.
Location data and photos are visible to anyone with the link
Each logged observation has a page at sightlog.eu/sightings/<id> that does not require sign-in. Anyone who has that link can see the species, exact coordinates, date, notes and photos. The links are not guessable, but they are not private once shared.
Your sightings appear in the nearby-sightings feed only if you turn on “Share my sightings in the community feed” in Settings. It is off by default and applies to all your sightings, past and future; turning it off removes them from the feed immediately. When it is on: people who are signed in to Sightlog see the species, date, count, exact coordinates, the first photo, the first word of your display name (or “Sightlog member”) and a link to the sighting page. People who are not signed in see only the species, date and count, with the location rounded to the centre of a grid square about 11 km across, and no photo, name or link. You always see your own sightings in the feed. Notes are never part of the feed. Sightings of other services (iNaturalist, eBird, Artskart) shown in the feed come from those services and are not affected by this setting.
Turning the setting off does not make the sighting page or its photo files private: anyone who already has their link can still open them (see above).
Photo files (including those attached to field notes) are stored in a publicly readable bucket, so anyone who has a photo address can fetch the original file, including its embedded metadata.
Where it goes
See the subprocessors page for the full list. In short:
- Database and web/API servers run on Hetzner infrastructure; photos are stored in Hetzner Object Storage (Nuremberg endpoint).
- Nearby feed: when you open the feed, your browser sends your position to our API, which forwards the position and search radius to iNaturalist, eBird and Artskart to fetch recent sightings. We do not store these positions in the database.
- Publishing to iNaturalist: only when you choose to. We send the species, time, coordinates, place name and notes to iNaturalist using your connected account. Publishing to Artsobservasjoner is not available yet.
- Maps: the map picker loads tiles from OpenStreetMap, sends the coordinates you click or your device position to OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim service to look up a place name,. These requests carry your IP address and browser details to those services. Fonts and map marker images are served from sightlog.eu itself, not from a third-party CDN.
- Species search: when you type in the species field while logging or editing a sighting, your browser sends the typed text directly to iNaturalist’s taxa search (api.inaturalist.org), so your IP address and browser details reach iNaturalist (US).
- AI: Sightlog’s own servers do not call any AI service and do not send photos, notes or locations to an AI provider. If you choose to connect an AI assistant through the MCP server (next section), that assistant receives whatever its tools return.
API keys and the MCP server
You can create personal API keys on the API keys page of your account. A key acts as you: it authenticates the same REST API the web app uses and can read, create, change and delete everything your account can, including observations, field notes and photos, your profile (email address, display name and connected iNaturalist username) and creating further keys. Keys have no separate scopes and no expiry. The full key is shown once when you create it; revoke it from the same page and it stops working immediately.
Sightlog also runs an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server at api.sightlog.eu/mcp, on the same server as the rest of the service, and publishes the same server as a package you can run locally. You give it your API key in the settings of an MCP client you choose, such as Claude or another MCP-compatible assistant. Its tools can list, read, create, edit and delete your sightings, save and read field notes and photos, read your profile, and fetch nearby public sightings (these use your search location, as in the feed above). When you or your assistant call a tool, whatever the tool returns, which can include your sighting locations, notes, photos, field notes and profile details, is sent to that assistant and handled under its provider’s terms and privacy policy, not ours. Sightlog does not choose, contract or receive data from the assistant provider. Nothing is sent unless you configure a client with your key.
The hosted MCP server keeps no sessions and stores nothing itself; it passes each call on to the Sightlog API with your key. It has no logging of its own beyond the container’s standard output and the normal request logs described above.
Cookies and tracking
Sightlog’s own code sets no cookies and includes no advertising or analytics scripts. Sign-in is handled by FjordID, which may use its own session storage in your browser. While you write a field note the app keeps pending entries and photos in your browser’s IndexedDB storage (falling back to memory if that is unavailable) until they are uploaded.
Retention and deletion
We keep your data until you delete it or ask us to. You can edit or delete an observation, delete individual photos, and disconnect iNaturalist in the app. Deleting a single photo removes the file from storage. Deleting a whole observation removes its database record, but the photo files uploaded to it are not yet removed from storage automatically; email us and we will remove them. You can delete a field note in the app, which also removes its photo files from storage; sightings already created from it are kept. There is no self-service account deletion yet; email terjetyl@gmail.com and we will delete your account, observations and photo files. Server logs rotate by size, not by age.
Observations you published to iNaturalist are held by iNaturalist under its own policies and are not deleted by removing them from Sightlog.
Your rights
If you are in the EU/EEA you can ask for access to, correction of, deletion of, or a copy of your data, and object to processing. Email terjetyl@gmail.com. You can also complain to your national data protection authority.